New Start, Next Steps

I've just arrived in Japan and am currently figuring out my next steps. I've spent the last three days basically sitting on my hands. The last time I was here, in 2016-2017, it took me half the summer to figure out what I wanted to do. It worked out (hence my being here, I suppose), but it took time. I don't think it's unhealthy to sit and stew when it comes to creative work, which research -- after all -- is. But, being a salaried employee instead of scraping by on a small stipend gives one a sense of responsibility. If I'm not actively designing or conducting research, or, preparing my current research for publication, I should be doing something towards my goal, which is an academic career, and, for that matter, to fulfill the mandate set by the university. The university here expects me to conduct new research and actively publish and present it. While I, in all honesty, can't wait to get back into the archives, it's imperative that I also lay out a plan to publish my existing research.

1. I would like to produce one more journal article from my dissertation research. It's probable but unclear if SCL will publish my current work (now under revision). Another article based on one of my chapters would be preferable, at this point, to an article based on new, original research. The chapter on oyatoi gaikokujin in Hokkaido as co-imperialists has potential to be an important contribution (relatively speaking) to larger debates on Japan-US relations, the origins of Japanese imperialism, and America itself as an imperialist power. It also raises questions about the nature of colonialism and how it intersects -- and sometimes doesn't -- with national sovereignty. Hokkaido could, and indeed was, colonized concurrently by Japan and the United States, though the latter did so on behalf of Japan. It sounds entirely counter-intuitive, but American newspapers in the 1870s framed it as such.
2. However, my research on the Tondenhei is also significant in that it simply hasn't been done before. There simply is a dearth of research which analyzes the Tondenhei -- even uncritically -- and my work now only fills in a major gap in our understanding but helps us reconsider the colonial structures of Hokkaido.
3. In all of this, it also becomes clear to me how I should revise my dissertation. While I'm happy with most of the individual chapters, some of them read like an exposé of previously unknown knowledge rather than a strong, clear supporting argument towards my larger argument. For that, too, I need to completely revise my introduction, and reframe my work more soundly within current academic debates regarding the colonization of Hokkaido. 
4. I need to get AAS finalized, and consider a proposal for AAS in Asia. I would like to maybe fill my resume with some other conferences as well. How would I ago about presenting in Japan? What are my options, here? Is it worthwhile to try to go overseas well (keeping in mind that my research budget could go fast on plane tickets).

And now, in basically random order, some scattered ideas for conferences/papers/even future blog posts:

1. Orientalism and settler colonialism
2. Imperial narcosis
3. The case for Hokkaido as a colony/"Kaitaku" discourse as colonialism
4. The relationship between history and colonialism/the passage of history and capital accumulation
5. Ainu protection and racial hygiene
6. The disavowal of colonialism in Hokkaido
7. The origins of Japanese bone theft/current debates regarding the returns of Ainu bones
8. Conceptualizing trans-colonialism